1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to management of files stored on a computer, and in particular, to a graphical user interface for file viewing and selecting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information in a computer system is typically stored in the form of signals on various storage mediums, such as magnetic tapes, disks, semi-conductor devices, etc. As storage densities increase with advances in storage device technology, it has become possible for devices to store much more information than previously. When information is stored on a device, it is cataloged so that the same information is later retrieved when desired. Normally, a user identifies unique code name for a particular body of data to differentiate it from others. To retrieve a desired body of data, an appropriate code name associated with that data is used, wherein the device searches for an address of data associated with that code name and retrieves the desired data when that address is located.
Typically, a body of data is termed as a "file" and the cataloging of these files in the device is termed "filing". Typically, code names associated with particular data contain address pointers which point to areas in memory reserved for mass storage. The various code names and their pointers comprise the cataloging system. When high density storage devices are used, millions of bits of information are capable of being stored in such a device, which permits thousands, or even millions of files to be created.
Files are stored on a mass storage device such as a disk in a cluster or clusters or sectors, each cluster having a predetermined number of sectors. Each cluster has a unique different starting address. The locations of files are kept track of by means of some type of indexing system, such as the well-known file allocation (FAT) which itself is stored on the disk. Each position of the FAT is associated with a different cluster and contains an entry indicating there are no other clusters associated with the file or pointing to the next cluster of the file.
Files are located through the use of a hierarchical file structure. One well-known type of hierarchical file structure is organized as a tree. In a tree structured file system, files are organized with a single root node referred to as the "root." One or more nodes may then be connected to the root and one or more nodes may be connected to each node. Each node which has another node connected to it is a "directory" of flies. A leaf node is a node which has no other node connected to it except for the one immediately above it. Leaf nodes may be subdirectories or files. Technically, any node below the root node or root directory is a subdirectory. However, it has become common practice to refer to the first subdirectory mentioned in an identified path as a directory and any others following it as subdirectories of that so-called directory. That practice will be followed in this specification.
Each disk typically contains a root directory, many subdirectories and a multiplicity of files. A given file may be at the end of a path passing through the root directory and several subdirectories. Each directory contains entries for additional directories and files. A specific file may be identified by specifying the drive, path and file name. For example, "C:/Dir1/Dir2/FILE" identifies a file name FILE that is listed in subdirectory Dir2, which is subdirectory of Dir1, which in turn is a subdirectory of root directory C. This example is accurate for a DOS based operating system. In a UNIX type of operating system, the root directory is typically noted with a "/" followed by the file system name. In order to identify a particular file upon which an operation needs to be performed that file must somehow be marked to indicate that it is the intended file for the operation. The earliest file systems had text-based interfaces requiring that the entire file name be typed out with its entire path identifying the root directory and every subdirectory located in between the file and the root directory. It can be appreciated that such a requirement can be extremely cumbersome in the case of several hundred subdirectories or more. It can be further appreciated that this onerous task has an inherent risk of typographical errors that increases in severity if many files need to be marked.
An improvement in techniques available for marking files for an internal operation was made available by the introduction of operating systems which provided a graphical user interface (GUI). A GUI is fundamentally a protocol by which an application can generate output on a computer that has a bit-mapped display and can receive input from devices associated with the display. Essentially the improvement is that data objects representing particular files can be shown on the screen so the requirement for typing the path is eliminated. Through an application programming interface (API) different applications can interact with the interface and the underlying operating system. One popular operating system is the UNIX operating system which was originally developed by Bell Labs. Many versions of the UNIX operating system are provided by various computer companies. For example, the IBM Corporation provides an operating system known as AIX which is readily familiar to those with a background in UNIX programming. One GUI that is available to work with AIX is OSF/Motif which is based on the X-window system, often abbreviated as X. OSF/Motif is available from the Open Software Foundation, Inc. (OSF). The X-window system was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
OSF/Motif is the means by which an application program can obtain input from and display output to a user of the application. Motif provides the intermediary mechanisms for communication between the application and the user. To both sides, these mechanisms appear as a set of objects with graphical representations on the screens. The program creates and displays objects of a variety of types provided by Motif for showing the user particular kinds of output and requesting particular kinds of input. The user supplies input by manipulating the screen representations as objects with a pointer, a keyboard, or both as described above. The Motif API is supplied by OSF and is implemented in the "C" programming language. Motif requires that an application written in C conform to the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). For this reason, it is convenient to explain the logic implemented by this invention in terms of the C language conforming to ANSI standards; however, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that other programming languages as well as well-known hardware logic can be substituted in view of the teachings described below. For a comprehensive overview and description of how to program to communicate with the OSF/Motif API, reference may be made to the OSF/MotifProgrammer's Guide, Release 1.2, provided by the Open Software Foundation, Inc.
The X-window system upon which Motif is based is architectured along the client-server computing model. The application program is the client, communicating through the X protocol with a server that handles the direct output to an input from the display. The client and server may be running on the same machine or on different machines, communicating over a network. Applications do not communicate with the X server directly. Instead they use one or more libraries that provide high-level interfaces to the X protocol. The three principal libraries available to a Motif application are X lib, the X tool kit intrinsics (Xt), and Motif tool kit. Three of the most important Xt contributions are the following: objects, known as widgets, used to hold data and present an interface to the user; management of widget geometry; and dispatching and handling of events.
A widget is a combination of state and procedure. Each instance of a widget is a member of a class. A widget class holds a set of procedures and data structures that are is common to all widgets of that class. A widget instance contains the procedures and data structures that are particular to that single widget. A widget instance also has a pointer to its class. Each widget class typically provides a general behavior associated with a particular kind of interaction with the user. For example, Motif has a widget class designed to let the user enter and edit text. This class provides a general behavior to support test input and display, including editing, selection, cutting and pasting of text. The class has data structures related not only to the context of the text but also to the appearance of the widgets when displayed as object metaphors. To use this class, an application creates an instance of this class of widget and provides some of its own data and procedures for the widget instance.
Through the use of a GUI, such as that available in IBM's operating system/2 (OS/2) or IBM's AIX operating system, a file can be marked for operation by "selecting" it. Selecting a file involves using a well-known mouse or keyboard to mark a graphical or iconic representation of the file on a computer display screen. While this is an improvement over text-based interfaces, modern computer systems include thousands and potentially millions of files so that selecting each file can be extremely tedious. When a directory contains many files, such as 500 or 1,000, it is very tedious and time-consuming to select files by clicking and dragging the cursor to the intended file. And, if a directory has a lot of subdirectories, the user has to click on each subdirectory in order to select all the files in that subdirectory. Further, while a well-known mouse may provide the most convenient tool for selecting files, a typical user does not know how to view or select files using a mouse because it is not intuitively obvious. This runs counter to the objectives of GUI systems which are intended to improve user performance by making as many things as possible intuitively obvious to him or her. For example, if a left mouse button displays files and a right button selects files, it is not obvious to the user which mouse buttons should be used to display and select files.
It would be an advancement in the art to provide a system and method for defining a user input device such as a mouse to directionally select all files in a directory tree for a particular file system which is displayed on a graphical user interface. It would be a further advancement in the art if it was possible to program such an input device to display files only, or select all files in the currently selected directory, or select all files in all subdirectories, or select all files in the current directory and all subdirectories. Such performance and convenience capability provided in an intuitive graphical user interface would clearly satisfy a long-felt need in the art.